Why Don't Stations Change Inventory?

[Aeonic]

You'd think with all these traders flying around and people buying and selling to earn a living, that the inventories of stations would alter gradually. But it doesn't. Every station always has the same inventory that it was created with, aside from a few stations like manufacturing plants which seem to generate more of their usual inventory on a regular basis.

I think it would enhance the fun of buying and selling if stations would routinely change their stock, so you can revisit stations that you've already bought and sold dry and see if they've got anything new to work with.

There's also the issue that, if you haven't found the item you're looking for in any of the stations prior, there's never any reason to revisit those stations because you know, if they didn't have it then, they won't have it now.

[Prophet]

There has been a few attempts at this and the question seems to pop up every now and again so I'll just drop some of the pros and cons:

Pros
-----
- More interesting trading
- Lots more credits
- Increased item availability
- more realistic simulated economy


Cons
------
- Lots of timers, and resource usage
- very unbalancing and possibly exlpoitable
- alot of work to overwrite Every station


While this would be very beneficial and desireable in a persistant game, the nature of Transcendence almost tries to push you forward to the core and discourages alot of backtracking.
I wouldn't mind seeing this attempted in the corporate trading post or a few stations in St. Katherines to simulate a bustling hub of civilization.

[Aeonic]

While this would be very beneficial and desirable in a persistent game, the nature of Transcendence almost tries to push you forward to the core and discourages alot of backtracking.

I suppose it wouldn't matter so much if I didn't prefer to stick around St. Katherine's trying to eek every inch of prosperity out of it before being condemned to the depths of the other half of the game where the only things there are to do are military missions and base camping...

[Atarlost]

If trade stations replenished inventory there would be infinite money available. This is bad, worse than increased mining profits. This would completely wipe out any economic balance to the game, remove the pressure to advance, and allow everyone to get a near optimal kit at the first adventurer's outfitters or Thor's.

[Aeonic]

Some people actually like playing that way. If they like it, why stop them? If they want the game to be challenging, they can press forward as quickly as possible. If they want to sit back and enjoy trading and working to earn huge sums of money, why stop them? Its not like it destroys the game - a few systems down the road and you've converted to a different money system anyway.

You seem to be very bent on the idea that "this is the way the game should be played and that's it!" No one is forced to earn money at what later will turn out to be a horrifically slow pace unless they want to.

[Betelgeuse]

Some people actually like playing that way. If they like it, why stop them? If they want the game to be challenging, they can press forward as quickly as possible. If they want to sit back and enjoy trading and working to earn huge sums of money, why stop them? Its not like it destroys the game - a few systems down the road and you've converted to a different money system anyway.

You seem to be very bent on the idea that "this is the way the game should be played and that's it!" No one is forced to earn money at what later will turn out to be a horrifically slow pace unless they want to.

that is very naive view of video game players in my experience. In general they will do everything they can to make a game easier and then complain that the game is to easy. There are exceptions to this but they play with self imposed restrictions they have to get over wildly varying difficulty (as in unbalanced games) to extreme difficulty (for games where it is assumed everyone will do everything)

[Sponge]

While I agree completely with Betel on the difficulty thing, I feel that asserting that this system couldn't be created in a balanced manner is unfair. Restock doesn't necessarily mean "every five minutes the stock changes completely." On the contrary, I remember a concept (planned mod?) where the economy would be run by freighters. They would drop off and pick up items from stations, altering the store's credit supply appropriately. I think something like this would greatly expand the overall feel of the Transc universe.

[Betelgeuse]

item movement is fine as long as no new items are generated. I would even be support (I would even like it) if some miners took some ore to a station and that turned into something else and some other ships would take that and "sell" it at a different station. (non player indirect trading)